Page 86 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid
A day had passedsince Cordelia had spilled her heart to him. He’d seen her to the medpod and then back to her room, where she gave him a lingering kiss on the threshold and asked him if he wanted to come inside. Declining had been one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. She asked him to join her for breakfast, and he was helpless to refuse, unable to bear the thought of causing her any further disappointment.
He’d lain awake all night in his bed, staring at the smooth concrete ceiling and thinking of hundreds of ways their conversation might have gone better. In the sweetest iterations, he spilled his truth to her, and she forgave him without reservation. In the worst, she could not bear to look upon him ever again. The latter played in his head on an endless loop, filling him with a bone-deep dread.
He tried unsuccessfully to banish the thought, taking a deep breath as he prepared to face her again. He looked down at his uniform self-consciously, tucking his shirt in a little tighter, then he knocked on her door. It whirred open a moment later, revealing her bright, smiling face. The only evidence of her previous heartbreak was a slight puffiness around her eyes.
“Good morning,” she said.
“It is.” It had not been just a moment ago, but now he was looking at her smiling face and breathing her sweet, alien scent, and there was no way it could be anything butgood.
She laughed, and he wished he knew why so he might make her do it again.
Her expression softened. “I guess it really is.” She huffed, rubbing her forehead. “Honestly, it might be the first I’ve had in years. Who knew that all it would take is crash landing on an alien planet and spilling my guts to the first alien I saw?”
That made his heart cramp with guilt. He rubbed it absent-mindedly, and her expression turned pitying. She caught his hand, squeezing, oblivious that her every kindness only made him feel more wretched.
“Come on, let’s get some food,” she said, tugging him along.
They walked in companionable silence, and he was grateful for it. His thoughts were in disarray, the shame twisting in his gut more powerful than ever. She had finally opened up to him, had been willing and eager to share her body as she had shared her soul, and he… he was nothing but a coward.
There were so many words on the tip of his tongue, and none could make it past the anxious clench of his teeth.
He was beneath her. That was the truth, and he could not bear to see her realize it.
She had already suffered a great betrayal at the hands of a trusted ally; how could she ever see past his own mistakes? How would she ever trust him?
They were meant to fly into danger together in just a few days. If he told her now… it was more than just the debilitating fear of rejection. He feared he would compromise her rescue mission by dividing her attention. If she felt he could not be trusted, she would be distracted, at risk. Or worse—she might petition the others to exclude him entirely, and he could not bear that.
Whatever strange pull she had over him would never allow him to watch her go into danger as he sat on his hands. He belonged between her and harm. That felt like the most basic law of nature to him.
After. He would tell her the truth of his past after the mission, when there was no danger to the operation. That was only sensible, wasn’t it? Pragmatic, not self-serving.
He bit back a whine of anguish, knowing he was lying to himself as much as her. His tail rattled anxiously.
“Rentir,” she said as they approached an intersection of the corridors, clearly unable to take the silence any longer. “Is something?—”
“You,” someone hissed off to his left.
Rentir had already begun to turn to her, but now he stiffened, blood draining from his face. His tail went still, tucking between his legs as his ears flattened against his head. For a moment, all he could hear was the pounding of his own heart in his ears.
Not now, he thought desperately, hopelessly.
The male who’d called out to them was striding down the hall, from the direction of the big blast door that sealed off the mines. The starkly red male was as big as Melam, with the same four arms but only two eyes. They were black as pitch; it was impossible to tell where he was looking, but the sneer on his face was clearly for Rentir. His curling horns were so big that Rentir’s neck ached just looking at them.
Ven was a few steps behind him, his eyes darting between Rentir and the other male with a wary expression.
“Yelir.” Ven said in a warning tone, catching the bigger male by his shoulder. “Careful—the woman is with him.”
Yelir turned his dark gaze on her, faltering. He blinked, stepping closer as he studied her. When he canted his head and reached a hand out, Rentir moved, stepping between them.
Rentir’s blood seemed to expand in his veins, his muscles bulging against his clothes in a way that was becoming familiar to him—an automatic response to his sense that Cordelia was in danger. “Do not touch her.” His tail sharpened to back up the threat.
Yelir caught him around the collar with one big fist, dragging him closer until they were nose to nose. His breath was thick with the scent of the spiced tablets the miners chewed to clear their aching lungs.
“I would far rather put my hands on you.” Yelir sneered. “Were it not for Thalen’s insistence, I would drag you down to the mines and let the others break your every bone, traitor.”
Cordelia chose that moment to intervene. She stepped around Rentir, hand resting on the hilt of her knife, and met the male’s inscrutable gaze.
“Let go of him,” she said in a level tone.
